1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wipes dispensers, and, more specifically, to a wipes dispensing system including a mounting element releasably mountable to fixed surface. The wipes dispensing system provides for easy dispensing of wipes in a variety of environments and in various orientations of the dispenser.
2. Description of the Related Art
Dry, wet or partially wetted cleaning wipes are known in the art. Other similar sheet-like substrates such as towels, sponges, pads, napkins, diapers etc are also known in the art.
Such items have been packaged in a number of different ways. For example cleaning wipes, tissues, napkins, etc. are often packaged in a standard dispenser box, sometimes with a removable or hinged lid. Such packaging, however, raises the problem of locating, grasping and removing the first substrate at the front of the dispenser package from an aperture in the package.
This problem has been addressed in the prior art by stacking the individual wipes or other substrates horizontally, interweaving each of the substrates with the preceding and subsequent substrate, sometimes referred to as interleaving the wipes. For example, containers or dispensers for wet wipes have been available wherein each of the wet wipes stacked in the container has been arranged in a folded configuration such as a c-folded, z-folded or quarter-folded configuration well known to those skilled in the art. A web of perforated wipes, formed as a roll and separated at the dispenser when needed, has also been used to address this problem.
By stacking the substrates or by using a perforated roll of wipes, when the user removes a substrate, the next substrate may be made to “pop-up” to be easily grasped the next time a wipe is needed. However, these “pop-up” dispensing systems can only be successfully used when the substrate is sufficiently flexible and where the aperture through which the wipes are dispensed offers sufficient resistance to avoid “roping” of the interleaved wipes or perforated wipes. If the dispensing aperture does not sufficiently resist the removal of a wipe, the interleaving of the wipes causes multiple wipes to be dispensed, i.e. the wipes “rope”. Roping in a rolled web of perforated wipes is also possible when insufficient force at the dispenser aperture allows multiple wipes to dispense without singulation of the wipes at the wipes separation perforations.
In the prior art, dispensing aperture resistance was accomplished by providing the dispensing aperture as a narrow slit. The narrow slit contacted the wipes during dispensing, thus providing a resistance while dispensing a wipe. However, with a narrow slit, a user could not easily grasp the front wipe to thread the wipe through the aperture for dispensing.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved structures and processes for the dispensing of wipes.